Twitter’s Chief Information Security Officer is Leaving to Create His Own Security Startup

The Verge is reporting Twitter’s CISO, Michael Coates, is leaving the company to create his own security startup:

Twitter’s chief information security officer is leaving the company, sources familiar with the matter have told The Verge. Michael Coates, who joined the company in January 2015, is quitting to start his own company, sources said. Coates announced the move internally about three weeks ago, sources said, but had not announced the move externally.

News of Coates’ departure comes on the same day that Michael Zalewski, director of information security engineering at Google, announced his departure from that company after 11 years. (Zalewski was a high-ranking security executive at Google but not its chief security officer; that role belongs to Gerhard Eschelbeck, vice president of security engineering.) not And it comes two days after reports that Alex Stamos, Facebook’s chief security officer, plans to leave the company in August. The departures come at a time when tech companies are under mounting pressure to prevent their platforms from being misused by foreign governments and other bad actors ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.

There are a lot of high-level security executives leaving larger Silicon Valley companies as of late. I think of the three – Google, Facebook, and Twitter – the latter has the most interesting sounding set of challenges.

If you are a security professional interested in a new opportunity, the Twitter gig would definitely be worth looking into.

SCOTT (すこっと)

Scott (すこっと) is a cyber security, threat intelligence strategist, and technology evangelist working and living in Tokyo. In addition to his day job, Scott is fascinated by the future of computing, the technology industry, privacy, encryption, mobile apps, politics, & Japan. Scott enjoys taking pictures with his iPhone and sharing them freely online, primarily on Instagram.